"So Bad They're Good" Cult Films and Camp Classics
See also: Mystery Science Theater 3000Many films enjoy cult status because they may be seen as ridiculously awful, for example Plan 9 from Outer Space (1958) or The Room (2003). The critic Michael Medved characterized examples of the "so bad it's good" class of low-budget cult film through books such as The Golden Turkey Awards. These films include such financially fruitless and critically scorned films, such as Showgirls, The Lonely Lady, Mommie Dearest, Cool as Ice, Boxing Helena, Manos: The Hands of Fate, North, The Wicker Man, Fatal Deviation, Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2, and Troll 2, which have become inadvertent comedies to film buffs. Movies have even achieved cult status by successfully imitating the awfulnesses of so-bad-it's-good movies (The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra and Amazon Women on the Moon being just two examples).
In other cases, little-known or forgotten films from the past are revived as cult films, largely because they may be considered goofy and senseless by modern standards, with laughable special effects and corny plotlines. These include Hobgoblins, Maximum Overdrive, Howard the Duck, Breakin', The Beastmaster, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, The Creeping Terror, Robot Monster, The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, The Man Who Saves the World and the works of Edward D. Wood, Jr. The Beastmaster is an example of the strange vectors which can lead to cult filmdom, as its reputation stems as much from ubiquitous cable-TV overplay as anything in the film itself.
These films should not be confused with comedic cult movies like The Toxic Avenger, Bad Taste, Army of Darkness, Murder By Death, Spaceballs, and the films of John Waters, which purposely utilize elements from films "so bad they're good" for comedic effect. This may be seen as related to the artistic style known as "camp".
Read more about this topic: Cult Film
Famous quotes containing the words bad, cult, films, camp and/or classics:
“When the water of a place is bad it is safest to drink none that has not been filtered through either the berry of a grape, or else a tub of malt. These are the most reliable filters yet invented.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“The cult of individuality and personality, which promotes painters and poets only to promote itself, is really a business. The greater the “genius” of the personage, the greater the profit.”
—George Grosz (1893–1959)
“Television does not dominate or insist, as movies do. It is not sensational, but taken for granted. Insistence would destroy it, for its message is so dire that it relies on being the background drone that counters silence. For most of us, it is something turned on and off as we would the light. It is a service, not a luxury or a thing of choice.”
—David Thomson, U.S. film historian. America in the Dark: The Impact of Hollywood Films on American Culture, ch. 8, William Morrow (1977)
“All of us recognize the great benefits to our own nation and to the world of a strong and progressive Iran. Your support of the Camp David accords and your encouragement of the leaders who are or may be involved in consummating the peace effort would be very valuable.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“There is a difference between dramatizing your sensibility and your personality. The literary works which we think of as classics did the former. Much modern writing does the latter, and so has an affinity with, say, night-club acts in all their shoddy immediacy.”
—Paul Horgan (b. 1904)